In May 2021 year, New Zealand’s Ardern Labour Government vowed to end low-skilled, wage crushing migration via a “once-in-a generation” reset for New Zealand’s immigration system.
It flagged a significantly smaller migration intake post-Covid focused on highly skilled, highly paid and productive migrants that fill genuine skills shortages. This meant abolishing the current low-skilled system, which allows businesses “to rely on lower-skilled labour and suppress wages rather than investing capital in productivity-enhancing plant and machinery, or employing and upskilling New Zealanders into work”.
Over the following 18 months, the Ardern Government backslid on its immigration commitments, instead loosening immigration rules, abolishing the cap on ‘skilled’ migrant numbers, reducing skill requirements, and expanding the number of parent visas available for up to 6 parents (how that works, don’t ask me).